010111 VO Basic Course Sacramental Celebrations (2024S)

Aims
The lecture aims to develop the historical and theological foundations of sacramental celebrations and thus offers criteria that help to translate the meaning into a humanly appropriate and theologically responsible form of celebration. The ability to critically assess historical and current liturgical developments with the aid of academic sources and documents and to analyze and interpret liturgical texts appropriately will be taught.
Contents:
In a largely secularized world, the church is still perceived particularly where it offers help in interpreting meaning in different situations of life through the celebration of sacraments and sacramentals. The lecture focuses on those acts of worship that scholastic theology refers to as "sacraments" or "sacramentals". Using selected sources, it will be shown that these acts of worship in various situations of life (initiation, reconciliation, marriage, ordination, illness) and in the proper use of the gifts of creation (water, oil, light) are a medium for experiencing God in the realization of the Paschal mystery. In the sacramental celebrations, the bodily, material world ("everyday life") becomes explicitly transparent towards the "kingdom of God": towards the sanctification of man, the building up of the body of Christ and the praise of God (cf. SC 59-61).

Method
Lecture and discussion